Schizophrenia is not about more than one being existing in the same body, and multiple beings don't exist within the same mind. Even the name of the illness that you meant is Dissociative Identity Disorder, defined as "a disorder characterized by identity fragmentation rather than a proliferation of separate personalities" (source).

I used to know lot more about this phenomenon schizophrenia in 1970's. It was then described and understood as consisting of sometimes quite opposing and independent aspects in one person, and even independent personalities in one person, or aspects and personalities which manifest periodically in the life of one person. It is a multifaceted phenomenon, its desriptions have changed in the course of centuries. It is understood differently in different cultures, its descriptions and the understanding of its possible causes differ in the many countries of the modern and ancient world. You can't say that any one definition is "correct", or that it really captures its essence.

Analysis to the level of emptiness does not refute dependent origination on the phenomenal level. If you say that causality is not a fundamental law then anything can come from anything and reason(ing) has no meaning at all. Causation means there must always be a cause for an effect. If there is no cause there is no causality and we are back at the previous point about anything coming from anything/nothing. Will, intention, is at the heart of dependent origination as the defining factor of karma, very much within the law of cause and effect. An intention that is free from all causes would mean something coming out of nothing, plus it'd have the problem of becoming permanent and ineffective. Thus "free will" cannot be the cause for a split in the karmic stream.

If for example in one life you practice and study music, and you also work as an engineer, and you then you develop both careers to a high degree. Or you develop any number of different careers in a single life, or you develop them in two or more consecutive lives. Is it not now possible or even likely that this will act as a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence into two or more parallel streams of existence?

Analysis to the level of emptiness does not refute dependent origination on the phenomenal level. If you say that causality is not a fundamental law then anything can come from anything and reason(ing) has no meaning at all. Causation means there must always be a cause for an effect. If there is no cause there is no causality and we are back at the previous point about anything coming from anything/nothing. Will, intention, is at the heart of dependent origination as the defining factor of karma, very much within the law of cause and effect. An intention that is free from all causes would mean something coming out of nothing, plus it'd have the problem of becoming permanent and ineffective. Thus "free will" cannot be the cause for a split in the karmic stream.

If for example in one life you practice and study music, and you also work as an engineer, and you then you develop both careers to a high degree. Or you develop any number of different careers in a single life, or you develop them in two or more consecutive lives. Is it not now possible or even likely that this will act as a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence into two or more parallel streams of existence?

No more than it is a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence in this lifetime (ie not at all).

Aemilius wrote: If for example in one life you practice and study music, and you also work as an engineer, and you then you develop both careers to a high degree. Or you develop any number of different careers in a single life, or you develop them in two or more consecutive lives. Is it not now possible or even likely that this will act as a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence into two or more parallel streams of existence?

No more than it is a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence in this lifetime (ie not at all).

As Greg says.

"There is no such thing as the real mind. Ridding yourself of delusion: that's the real mind."(Sheng-yen: Getting the Buddha Mind, p 73)

Analysis to the level of emptiness does not refute dependent origination on the phenomenal level. If you say that causality is not a fundamental law then anything can come from anything and reason(ing) has no meaning at all. Causation means there must always be a cause for an effect. If there is no cause there is no causality and we are back at the previous point about anything coming from anything/nothing. Will, intention, is at the heart of dependent origination as the defining factor of karma, very much within the law of cause and effect. An intention that is free from all causes would mean something coming out of nothing, plus it'd have the problem of becoming permanent and ineffective. Thus "free will" cannot be the cause for a split in the karmic stream.

If for example in one life you practice and study music, and you also work as an engineer, and you then you develop both careers to a high degree. Or you develop any number of different careers in a single life, or you develop them in two or more consecutive lives. Is it not now possible or even likely that this will act as a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence into two or more parallel streams of existence?

No more than it is a cause for the splitting of a single stream of existence in this lifetime (ie not at all).

You forget the teachings on the bardo/antarabhava, that it is much easier to affect a change in the fluid, unfixed state of transition, than it is when you are a name and form.It is very rare to effect a split when you have taken a namarupa (name and form), even then it can happen in some rare cases.

Concerning the Kakudhathera sutta:It may be that Bhikkhuni Utpalavanna was translating from a different version of the pali text. It does happen, for some reason or other, that there appear new editions of the pali texts. I have understood some of the Musings of Sravasti Dhammika that he is saying, between the lines, that there has occurred some new editing of the very holy pali canon.And by the way Bikkhuni Uppalavanna (Else Buchholz) is an interesting person: http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Uppalavanna

Aemilius wrote:You forget the teachings on the bardo/antarabhava, that it is much easier to affect a change in the fluid, unfixed state of transition, than it is when you are a name and form.It is very rare to effect a split when you have taken a namarupa (name and form), even then it can happen in some rare cases.

You forget that this existence is also a bardo (shinay - birth and life, milam - dream and samten - meditation bardo) and is a "fluid, unfixed state of transition", if it was not then practice would be futile.

What he did state, apparently based on what he had actually observed in meditation, was that the lowest levels of animal ghosts (as I recall, I believe he was referring to low-level animal ghosts who were in the process of falling yet farther down into the abyss of bad karma) might manifest as swarms of insects, which would help discharge the karmic retribution accumulated by the very low level animal. Presumably, after a time then there would be rebirth again as one of these very low level animals and then gradual ascent back up towards the human realm, a process which could even take kalpas.

Another instance: He spoke of instances of a single being taking rebirth as a small group of animals, this involving apparently a paying off of some of the heaviest karma, apparently followed by a re-integration either into a higher animal or a preta or eventually, a person.

The above cases are indeed controversial. But Master Hua's meditative experiences were not what you or I encounter on the meditation cushion. He would not have spoken of these sorts of cases if he had not personally observed them to be the case.

You may have encountered yet other sorts of reports in his writings that I wasn't around at the time to hear. Can't imagine though that he would ever state this to be the case of one human being reborn as multiple humans.

Even though I heard Master Hsuan Hua experienced this in his meditation, it's been giving me a headache and insecure thoughts. How could one person with one mind stream become animals with multiple mind streams? Is there a central mind that control all these animals? Do these animals that a person born into share thoughts and feelings? Moreover, when animal killed one another, then you're killing yourself??? All of these don't make sense, yet it stuck on my mind since it was said by Master Hsuan Hua, who is known to be a highly attained monk...Oh.......

You are just attached to the idea of a "self", which really doesn't exist. In the the Five Wisdoms of the Mahayana there is the Wisdom of Sameness; if you see all beings as Same, as Dharmata equally, as fundamentally not different form yourself, you don't have anything to fear by the loss of a separate and illusory "self".

The idea of "sameness" is that all beings have the same "value". That they are all equally worthy of compassion, love, respect, etc... The teaching aims at breaking down the idea of beings being ultimately seperate (ie it teaches that existence is interdependent). It does not mean that other beings are you, and vice versa. Buddhism teaches ndependent mindstreams. Buddhism does not talk of a universal consciousness of which we are all a part of (the idea of God Head). If mindstreams were not independent then if one being achieved Nirvana (or any other level of relaisation) then all beings would. This is VERY CLEARLY not the case since we know that the Buddha achieved liberation, yet here we are...

The self is illusory, yes, but even illusory existence is a type of existence.

gregkavarnos wrote: If mindstreams were not independent then if one being achieved Nirvana (or any other level of relaisation) then all beings would. This is VERY CLEARLY not the case since we know that the Buddha achieved liberation,..

This is refuted by Maitreya and Asanga in Madhyanta Vibhaga, where the author says: "It is an amazing idea that in enlightenment oneself is enlightened and others are not!" (quotation from memory). This view and experience is repeated in tantric literature and biographies, it literally means that the person experiences others as buddhas, as enlightened, as divinities. The outside appearance, the thing perceived as world and beings, depends on your consciousness, on the level of your realisation.

Ofcourse I am liberated. If I were not, Buddha Vajradhara would not have attained Mahamudra. Neither would Tilopa, Naropa or anyone else have attained it.What is familiarisation with liberation, that you advertize in Your signature? Is it that You naturally and effortlessly behave according to the Five precepts and Ten ways of whole some action? Or its opposite?

Correction: the passage of Maitreya and Asanga I had in mind, is in Abhisamayalankara or the Ornament of Clear Realisation, verse 204.

So send me a photo of you to put on my altar to prostrate to every morning.

If I were not, Buddha Vajradhara would not have attained Mahamudra. Neither would Tilopa, Naropa or anyone else have attained it.

What are you talking about? This statement makes no sense. It is because you are enlightened that Vajradhara, Tilopa and Naropa are enlightened?

What is familiarisation with liberation, that you advertize in Your signature? Is it that You naturally and effortlessly behave according to the Five precepts and Ten ways of whole some action? Or its opposite?

If I were not, Buddha Vajradhara would not have attained Mahamudra. Neither would Tilopa, Naropa or anyone else have attained it.

What are you talking about? This statement makes no sense. It is because you are enlightened that Vajradhara, Tilopa and Naropa are enlightened?

I meant it the other way. I think it is in the biography and writings of the japanese pureland teacher Shinran Shonin, where he tells that Amitabha Buddha made his famous 48 vows where he promises that anyone who thinks of him even just ten moments will be enlightened. And then one day Shinran realized that because Amitabha has become enlightened, he too is enlightened, because of the vows of bodhisattva Dharmakara, (that is Amitabha as a bodhisattva). All buddhas and bodhisattvas have made vows to enlighten all beings, their enlightenment manifests and occurs in relation to other beings. Because they have become enlightened, because they have seen the world as pure, that samsara is really nonexistent, therefore i am, or we are, a pure manifestation of enlightenment.

Hmm, I'm wondering if that needle wasn't a sword? And those worlds the lives of the many varied creatures in this plane of existence? And that little ant the insignificant bodhi mind which blossoms into realization? And that woman the ever shifting foundation on which all illusion emerges? And the cave dweller hmm I wonder who that is?